Bloomberg's John Heilemann played up President-Elect Donald Trump's "very monochromatic group" of Cabinet picks so far during a segment on Monday's CBS This Morning. Gayle King underlined how Vice President-Elect Mike Pence stated that Trump "will represent all of the people of the country," and added that "when you look at the picks so far, there are some troubling signs, some say, about lack of diversity there." Heilemann contended that "the current array of choices...[are] not just a monochromatic group, but a hardline group ideologically."

For the but-tell-us-how-you-really-feel file, this headline on a Friday post by Mother Jones blogger Kevin Drum: “Fuck You, James Comey.” The post, of course, centered on the presumed effect on presidential voting of Comey’s October 28 letter which jump-started the Hillary Clinton e-mail story. “When an election is close…there are dozens of people, events, and movements that can make a difference of 1 percent or so,” wrote Drum. “But if we're going to choose one particular person who managed to hand the White House to a buffoonish game show host, it's FBI director James Comey, the guy who…provided the match that Trump used to light the country on fire.”

Thursday evening, Venezuela's Bolivarian Socialist government arbitrarily suspended the recall effort against "President" Nicolas Maduro, demonstrating beyond any doubt that the South American country now functions as a dictatorship. Given its gravity, this news, described in coverage at the Wall Street Journal as "a crisis of democracy," is not getting the visibility it should be receiving.

The federal government's fiscal year ended on September 30. As has been the administration's habit for years with news that might draw negative attention, the Treasury Department conveniently released its year-end Monthly Budget Review Friday afternoon to minimize the discussion of its grim news.

The latest installment of Stupid Fact Checks involves Politifact, the heavyweight champion of dishonest "fact checkers." The web site's clear mission is to make false leftist claims look credible while discrediting valid statements made by those on the center-right.

As the National Football League's Week 6 went into full swing Sunday, it has become clear that its TV ratings plunge is real, serious, and having a bottom-line impact. At the same time, there's a growing determination in the establishment press to avoid citing the "(Colin) Kaepernick effect" of player protests during the playing of the national anthem as a contributing factor. Recent lengthy items in the Washington Post and at two other national outlets don't even contain Kaepernick's name or the word "anthem."

On Wednesday’s NBC Today, co-host Matt Lauer once again whined over Donald Trump threatening to bring up Bill Clinton’s sex scandals during a debate with Hillary Clinton: “There’s this other thing that he continues to talk about yesterday, this idea that he did not go there, that he showed restraint against Hillary Clinton when it comes to issues in her marriage. It’s this thing where you get to go there by saying you’re not going there....So is this working?”

Hillary Clinton only took four questions during a mini-press conference on Monday. Yet, a Bloomberg journalist still managed to lob a softball, wondering if ISIS may favor the “easy” Trump and is trying to “drive” voters away from Hillary Clinton.

The press continues to ignore reality by insisting that it's a settled matter that Hillary Clinton and conpany were never involved in fomenting and promoting the Barack Obama "birther" rumors. Even today, with damning new evidence that a campaign apparatchik started such an effort, and that a confidant whose relationship with the Clintons goes back to Bill Clinton's presidency pitched the story to a former journalist at the McClatchy news service, reporters Jill Colvin and Jonathan Lemire at the Associated Press insisted, as if it's an undisputed fact, that "there is no evidence" that "the 'birther movement' was started by Hillary Clinton."

At a Friday night fundraiser serendipitously open to the press, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton characterized half of Donald Trump's supporters as a "basket of deplorables," and further described an undetermined number of these "deplorables" are "irredeemable."

As has so often been the case, the headline and opening paragraph of the initial report at the Associated Press about her remarks, seen in a running "The Latest" series, wasn't really about her. It was about Donald Trump's reaction. A later headline, desperately trying to cover up Mrs. Clinton's critical mistake for people who won't click through to read Catherine Lucey's report, said that she only called "many" Trump supporters "deplorables," not "half."

For the second time in as many days, Hillary Clinton conducted a press gaggle on Tuesday afternoon and while it was brief, Bloomberg’s Jennifer Epstein received the first question and made the Clinton team proud by lobbing softballs to Clinton about fears she’s “held to a different standard” than Donald Trump and if she’s worried that Republicans will be “continuing to dig into you” if she wins the election.

After 52 percent of voters in Great Britain cast their ballots in favor of leaving the European Union on June 23, financial commentators around the world, particularly in the U.S., predicted ugly economic tidings for the UK.

People who swallowed the gloom and doom whole must have been especially surprised early Friday morning when Bloomberg News published a piece headlined "Pro-Leave Economists Can Smell Vindication." Keeping hope for bad news alive, the caption underneath the piece's accompanying video reads, "Brexit Effect Missing So Far From U.K. Economic Data." Sorry, guys, it isn't just that bad news is missing. It's that the news out of the UK has been very good — "unexpectedly," of course.

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